


The Exile of Sherlock Holmes

by CasablancaInTheTardis



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Mentions of Smut, Post-Reichenbach, Stream of Consciousness, Swearing, alternating pov
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-26
Updated: 2012-10-16
Packaged: 2017-11-15 02:22:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 12,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/522116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CasablancaInTheTardis/pseuds/CasablancaInTheTardis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sherlock faked his own death to travel the globe and dismantle Moriarty's web, he had no idea how long it would take or how difficult it would be. Until Sherlock fell, John had no idea just how important his flatmate had become to him.</p><p>In the years of Sherlock's self-imposed absence, both men realise things about themselves and about each other that will make them reconsider how they look at life. </p><p>But what will happen when John meets Mary, or when Moriarty's right-hand man realises Sherlock is still alive? </p><p>POV chaptered fic full of angst, fluff, random details about the boys' lives, brief blink-and-you-miss-it smut, and romance. Post-Reichenbach, BBC canon fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**The Beginning**

 

_Sherlock_

Falling’s just like flying, except there’s a more permanent destination. He told me that a few days before I left. Did I tell you? Moriarty, sat in my armchair, facing me in yours. I wasn’t afraid, I was confident. It was all just a game. I don’t think I realised how permanent my fall would be.

\-----

_John_

Nothing ever happened to me before I met you. When I came back from Afghanistan, I was a shell - crippled, lonely and dogged by my memories of the war. My world was devoid of colour; every day passed in the same blur of grey pain and worry over how to pay the rent. A crippled former army doctor is no use to anyone. Then there were the nightmares. I never thought I could live with another person again the number of times I would wake up in the middle of the night, screaming. 

And then I met you and you made me forget about all of that. Suddenly there was an excitement in my life again, and danger - my life seemed to regain some purpose being by your side, and it was fantastic. 

Your brother probably put it best, the very first time I met him (before I knew he was your brother, before I even really knew you). “When you walk with Sherlock Holmes, you see the battlefield,” he’d said. He wasn’t wrong. 

At first it was the danger that lured me to Baker Street and kept me by your side, but we both know it became more, much more than that. You were my best friend; you were enigmatic and intelligent; you had the people skills of a damp sock and sometimes your lack of empathy made me want to throttle you, but you could also be kind and generous when you wanted to be... I’m not going to list your virtues - you would enjoy that too much, egotist. 

I just...

I was so alone and you came along and filled up the gaps I didn’t know were missing and now... I don’t know how to...

I miss our colourful life. 

 

 

 


	2. Part One - Sherlock

Budapest has been the worst so far; four broken ribs dislocated left shoulder, concussion, bone-deep gash through to my tibia. It was worth it, obviously. I disposed of five of Moriarty’s web and, with Mycroft’s help, incarcerated a further three. Worth it, I know, but I’d never needed my doctor more. 

\-----

I miss the way you used to make my tea. Milk and three sugars for me, no sugar for you. Most of the time I never had to ask for it, you always felt the need to make one for me if you were going to have one yourself. I’d have said it was the soldier in you - it was economical, making the two teas at once rather than one now and another later. I know better, though, John. It’s the doctor in you. You can’t switch off caring about other people. You can’t turn off your empathy. 

I don’t have that problem. 

Tonight I killed a boy. One of Moriarty’s web, of course, but just sixteen years old. He was a drug mule and armed pimp operating out of the Parisian red-light district. He wasn’t a vital part of the web - I was tracking him to find one of Moriarty’s main French contacts. The authorities over there weren’t very accommodating, however, despite Mycroft’s interference, so I went in alone. He was armed, so it was self-defence, if that makes any difference? It’s a pity my aim is not as good as yours. 

\-----

One of the things I miss most is my violin. I know you won’t have given that away - sentiment. Predictable. There’s been no time to compose, obviously, and a month ago I broke two fingers on my left hand wrestling with two spanish hit-men on a gondola so I couldn’t play even if I wished to. But I have something I’ve been creating in my head for the last week or so. When I can, I’ll write it down. I’m desperate to get my hands back on my violin so I can practice the piece, then when I get home I’ll play it for you. I’ve been humming it under my breath all day today. Even as I wrapped a length of rope around the neck of one of Moriarty’s men in Gibraltar this morning, and pulled it until he stopped breathing, I hummed it. It’s quite catchy. 

\-----

In Vienna last night I met with Irene Adler. Did I ever tell you she was still alive? Probably not. I always did keep too much from you. Mycroft thinks it’s because I’m arrogant enough to believe myself above needing help. As usual, he’s wrong. It was just easier to compartmentalise certain aspects of my life. It was cleaner, easier. You didn’t need to know and you weren’t necessary for her rescue. The whole idea was to keep her alive while everyone thought she was dead - you didn’t need to be involved. 

I sometimes wonder where I’d be now if I’d told you my plan, that day - the day I fell; if I’d included you, would things have gone differently? Would you be here with me now, helping to dismantle Moriarty’s web one strand at a time? 

I wish I hadn’t had to compartmentalise that part of my life; I wish I hadn’t had to shut you out. But I couldn’t risk it, John. The stakes of Moriarty’s game were too high. I couldn’t risk you. 

Irene says I’m being a thoughtless, emotionless idiot in letting you think I’m dead, those were her exact words. Is she right?

\-----

There’s no time for experiments at the moment. Too much time is spent spying, plotting, hunting to determine the coagulation after death in the liver of a german shepherd, or the exact amount of time it would take an eighty kilo man to asphyxiate in a three foot cubed room filled with carbon monoxide. Those were experiments I had planned before I left. I do hope you haven’t taken the liver out of the icebox, John, and please tell me that you haven’t touched my microscope. I’ve been examining particulates from a five year old cold case for Lestrade so, for your sake, I hope they’ve remained untouched. 

I’m not holding my breath, though. 

You do think I’m dead, after all. 

\-----

It’s a Tuesday here. Is it Tuesday yet in London? My watch broke in the fall. I miss London and Baker Street. 

I miss...

\-----

Sometimes I think about coming home early. 

(Sometimes it’s all I think about)

It’s been a year already. The work is taking longer than I anticipated. 

I think about just showing up at 221b one day. I expect a slap from Mrs Hudson, then some tears, a hug and probably some tea and biscuits forced upon me when she sees how thin I’ve gotten. Mycroft, of course, knows I’m alive so I expect things to go on as usual where he is concerned - that is to say, he will continue to interfere and I will continue to ignore him. You, though... I don’t know how you’ll react. Maybe a punch or two, probably lots of shouting. I doubt you’d faint - you’ve seen worse in the war than a man returning from the dead. 

The worst case scenario would be your silence. I don’t think I could bear that, John. I’m the one who goes for days without speaking, not you. You always feel the need to fill up the silence, whether it’s complaining about the messes I leave in the kitchen, or asking about a case, or waxing lyrical about my ignorance of ‘the basic stuff’. 

Why would you give me the silent treatment? I left to protect you. I’ve spent over a year living like you couldn’t even imagine - backpacking from flea-bitten hostel to hostel, shooting and maiming and killing scores of people, hardly sleeping or eating or breathing, with no way to measure success or see a tangible reward, just the knowledge of the next job to keep me awake at night. And you would greet me with silence? 

Don’t I deserve something more than that, John? 

I would prefer the punch.


	3. Part One - John

I’m back in therapy, now. Psychosomatic limp, of course I had a therapist. Best friend makes you watch him fall to his death, of course I have a therapist. 

Ella told me to say it out loud, so I went to your grave (sounds ridiculous - how can you be dead?) and I said what I couldn’t say to you at the funeral. I told your headstone that you were the best man and the most human human-being that I’ve ever known and that no one would ever convince me that you told me a lie. 

I meant it, too. I don’t know why you jumped off that building, you great prat, but it wasn’t because you were a fraud. 

It felt good to tell you that I know you’re not a fraud. You’ve always been amazing - it’s not your fault that ordinary people were too intimidated or jealous or untrusting to see that. 

At your grave I made a request - just the one. You know what it was, but it’s obviously an impossible one, so I shouldn’t have bothered. 

Therapy is redundant - I am never going to come to terms with the fact that you’re gone and no amount of talking to (pleading with) your rotting corpse or writing about it in my stupid blog is going to make one bit of difference. 

 

\-----

 

I’ve forgotten how to make tea for just one person. I always boil enough water for two, I automatically get out two mugs, two teabags, two ginger-nut biscuits. It’s never until I go to hand it to you that I remember. 

There are a few new stains on Mrs Hudson’s carpet. 

I’m just so mad at you, Sherlock. How could you do that? You went somewhere I couldn’t follow without telling me why. 

Why would you do that? I don’t understand and it makes me so angry I could scream and shout until I’m blue in the face. 

I settled on smashing your favourite mug instead. The pieces are in the bottom of my army trunk now. I’m sorry. 

I need to leave Baker Street - I’ll go mad if I stay here. 

 

\-----

 

Is Moriarty dead? They never found his body. There were no more reports in the paper about Richard Brook, either. I feel as though I’m missing something. 

Tell me, Mr Punchline, what is going on?

 

\-----

 

The work at the surgery helps me when I can get it. It takes my mind off things; it’s a safe-haven in a veritable maelstrom of angry thoughts. Chiefly among them is denial. I switch between being so angry that you left me to believing that it was all just an illusion. 

When I have to take patients’ heart rates at the surgery (and I often just take their pulse manually, like I did when I was in the army) it brings back a flood of unwanted pain. 

It didn’t help that my last patient looked like you. Well, not exactly like you, of course. He was only seventeen, but he was pale and gangly and had hair so similar to yours that I had to restrain myself from running a hand through it to see if it was the same texture. 

It was embarrassing. 

He was also a chain smoker. I diagnosed him with bronchitis, but warned him that lung cancer wasn’t far off if he didn’t give up his addiction.

It was odd, imagining that this boy was a representation of you when you were that age. Of course, you wouldn’t have been covered in tattoos, and I can’t imagine you at any age without your greatcoat, but the similarities were striking. 

I wish...

 

\-----

 

Living with Harry is a nightmare. She’s moody, messy and altogether unreliable. I suppose she reminds me a lot of you. Except instead of dirty dishes and empty bottles of scotch lying on literally every available surface in the flat, you would leave your experiments. 

The number of times I had to tell you to store various body parts on the bottom shelves of the fridge was ridiculous. I think you thought it was funny. There came a point in our relationship where I think you put things in there to test me - to measure my reaction and gauge just how much you could get away with. 

Was I an experiment to you?

Perhaps an experiment in human conditions - how far can one push his flatmate until he snaps? You had to jump off a building to achieve that. Does that help?

 

\-----

 

You know, I used to get so frustrated when people would automatically assume we were a couple. So many times I would have to remind people that I’m not actually gay. It’s ironic (and I know you’d probably correct me for incorrect use of that word) to find that I actually miss that now. 

People saw us as a unit; we weren’t John Watson and Sherlock Holmes, we were John and Sherlock, Sherlock and John, the detective and his blogger, the army captain and his mad flatmate. 

Without you I’m just John - ordinary, boring, lonely. 

Do you think people were picking up on something that we were too blind to see? Did we act like a couple? Caring about someone isn’t something to be ashamed of - why was I so touchy about it? Maybe I just didn’t want to allow myself to think about you like that. Maybe I didn’t trust myself not to fall down the rabbit hole if I stopped to think that maybe Angelo and Mycroft and Mrs Hudson and all of my ex-girlfriends had a point. 

We cared about each other, didn’t we? I would’ve done anything to keep you safe, if only you’d let me. Only now that you’re gone am I allowing myself to think of you that way - only for a moment. 

We weren’t a couple - you would’ve made a terrible boyfriend. 

 

\-----

 

I treated twin girls today for the measles. It reminded me of the case we took in Birmingham, do you remember? I called it ‘the Speckled Blonde’ and you scoffed. That was a fun week. 

 

\-----

 

I dream about him, you know. 

Moriarty. 

Is he still out there in the streets - the consulting criminal? I don’t know what he did to make you jump, Sherlock, but he has to pay for what he did. I shot the cabby that nearly made you take that pill, the first night we met - do you remember? I wasn’t quick enough this time, though. If only...

In my dreams - my nightmares - he’s strapping me in explosives, or he’s holding a gun to my head, but I’m never worried about myself, because in every nightmare, you’re on the roof, about to fall, and there’s never anything I can do. In my nightmares I must have reached the bargaining stage of grief because I’m always begging Moriarty to pull the trigger and let you live. My life for yours. Apparently my subconscious thinks that’s a fair bargain - one ex-army doctor for the life of a genius. When I’m awake, I can never admit that I might agree. 

It’s pathetic.


	4. Part Two - Sherlock

I dream about him, you know? 

Moriarty, of course. 

I rarely had dreams at Baker Street, save for a few after that night at the pool. They were all explosions and skinning and drowning and you. 

Now, I dream all the time. Not that I have much time to sleep. The work must come first. The sooner I am done, the sooner I can return to Baker Street and to dreamless sleep and... How I miss that comfortable oblivion. Now, I fall. I’m always falling. 

I just want to come home. 

 

\-----

 

Whenever I make a particularly clever deduction that inevitably leads me to my next target, I find myself explaining it to you in my head.   
“You see, John? Those trainers could only have been manufactured in this factory, where he must work, and from the genetic similarities I can deduce that this man is definitely related to and working for one of Moriarty’s upper-level thugs.”  
You always reply with incredulity - I never fail to impress you. (It’s one of the things I miss most). You take notes so you can write it up in your blog. 

When I lie down in whatever decrepit hostel I’ve managed to find myself in, I close my eyes and imagine you’re here with me. I can usually only afford rooms with a single bed, so it’s cramped, but it’s always more bearable with you here. An adventure - a thrill, even - instead of work. Instead of a nightmare. 

When I imagine you here, I don’t dream as much, but when I wake up and remember, I feel worse than after the nightmares. I don’t understand. 

I’m lost without my blogger. 

 

\-----

 

Did I ever tell you about the case I took on for Lestrade about the Russian diplomat and the circus performer? It has all the intrigue of those spy thrillers you’re so fond of (with a bit of the melodramatic romance the likes of which you’d find in your various girlfriends’ Mills and Boon novellas). I think you’d have liked that case - lots of running, red herrings and danger. 

I said danger, and here you are. 

I wonder what title you would have given it in your blog. No doubt it would have been utterly ridiculous. I would make a face and tell you just how utterly ridiculous it sounded - that it degraded the value of our work. You’d ignore me. I’d ignore that I secretly like the ridiculous names you give our cases. They’re so very... John.

 

\-----

 

Sometimes, in that space between consciousness and the nightmares, I imagine you holding my hand. I’m surprised by their texture - soft and smooth. Doctor’s hands, I know, but I always expect callouses from gripping your gun, or ragged fingernails from some adventure or other (for instance, last October when we were forced to scale the wall of the trades building in Manchester - your nails were in tatters for a week afterwards. Of course I noticed). But no, your hands are perfectly soft, your nails trimmed (not manicured) into blunt crescents - a doctor’s hands. 

My doctor’s hands. 

 

\-----

 

I learned to lipread for that Russian/circus case. I also learnt russian - did I tell you? I’m sure you would have noticed me muttering away in our living-room one day. Well, I’m not sure. I rarely noticed you leaving or returning to the flat, but I assume that you did. Probably for the clinic or milk. Boring. 

I wonder if you have a language kink?

 

\-----

 

How long has it been now, John? A year and how many months? Why is it still going? This work is endless and unforgiving. I just want... 

Before, the work was never work. I had nothing to tie me down. Cases took me across Europe, sometimes, and it never bothered me. I was free.

Now, I have distractions. Distraction. 

Some days I cannot focus, which is absolutely unacceptable. The nicotine patches over here seem pathetically ineffective - I’d expect better in a place such as Oslo. Obviously, the sooner I finish the job, the sooner I may return to Baker Street. Mycroft’s promised me a knighthood when I return. I don’t care about that, though. I just want to come home.


	5. Part Two - John

I think I might be going mad. Everywhere I look, I see you. On the tube today, I saw the back of a man in a coat just like yours. I stared at the back of his head - dark hair, too - until he got off and I realised I’d missed Russell Square by five stops. 

In the local cafe, yesterday, I zoned out completely - you know where you look at something but everything else fades into the background. In this case, I was watching someone write a text message on their phone. They’d stopped just outside the window and I couldn’t help but notice how long and pale their fingers were and how fast they flew across the keys. 

Sometimes, I think I see the tail of a coat disappearing around a corner and I follow it only to find no one there. 

It’s ridiculous. 

I’m ridiculous. 

I need to get over you. 

 

\-----

 

Five months at Harry’s flat, over a year since you fell - is it a Tuesday where you are?

 

\-----

 

I went out on the pull last night. Haven’t done that since before... 

It was easy, really. I put on the charm, I ignored anyone who looked like they read the news (no one likes the blogger of the fraud) and was out of the pub and back to this woman’s flat within the hour. 

It was horrible and it was brilliant. I left straight afterwards - I’m not looking for a long-term thing. I’m not in the right headspace for a relationship because I’m still mourning you. I know I should harden up, soldier on, all that rubbish, but I can’t. 

She had your hair. 

 

\-----

 

Harry didn’t cry when I moved out today. In fact, she didn’t even say goodbye. She just helped my load my two boxes of stuff into the back of the cab and made me promise to call her at least once a week. It’s weird having her treat me like I’m the one about to break. 

You’d hate my new flat - it’s bland and modern and dreadfully uncluttered. On the other hand, you might think it’s a good, clean place to perform all sorts of scientific experiments, but you will never fit the torso of a man inside my fridge, now, Sherlock - it’s only a small one. 

It came with the essentials - telly, mattress, small couch and the bar fridge, the rest of the things in here I brought with me. Hardly anything from Baker Street, though, just my medical journals, a few mugs, and your skull. Not your skull, obviously, that’s six feet under, but the one you used to talk to before you met me. Maybe I can talk to it now that you’re gone. It won’t be much company, though - there’s no chance he’ll answer back. How dull. 

 

\-----

 

Thirteen months, now. You’ve been dead for a longer amount of time than I have dated any single girl. Fancy that. 

 

\-----

 

Is it strange to say I miss your brother? Well, I don’t miss him. In fact, I hate him. It’s entirely his fault that you’re gone. If he hadn’t given that lunatic your life story, there’s no way things would have gone the way they did that day. 

I don’t miss Mycroft, per-say, I more lament what his lack of omnipresence represents. I haven’t been abducted into a black sedan in half a year, I haven’t laughed at his inability to stick to a diet, I haven’t been privy to top-secret government cases involving missile plans or royal scandals - my life has been exceedingly dull since the Holmes brothers left the picture. 

I think I now understand why you were always so destructive when you didn’t have a case - the boredom is maddening. 

 

\-----

 

I do have days when I don’t think about you, you know. You’re gone and my life doesn’t - it can’t - revolve around you anymore. I went all day without thinking about you. There was a match on, and I had work and then I went out for a drink with the rugby lads from my uni days. I didn’t think of you once, so there you go. I did wake up in the middle of the night, though, my shoulder aching and my hands shaking and I accidentally remembered you. I don’t know why. That’s the problem - you’ve somehow woven yourself into every aspect of my life and every corner of my brain and I can’t just forget. Fuck you, Sherlock Holmes. 

 

\-----

 

For the first time in a long time, I bought a newspaper. I’ve been a bit off them since they printed all that crap about Richard Brook, but a headline caught my eye today that made me think of you and I couldn’t help myself. 

“String of Underworld Criminals Found Dead Across Europe” it said. Apparently whole criminal organisations have been falling across the continent over the past eight months. Smugglers, people traffickers, known thieves and murderers are just turning up dead all over the place - Budapest, Paris, Vienna. The papers seem to think it’s a coincidence - worth reporting for the intrigue, nothing more - but if I didn’t know better, I’d say all these criminal groups were probably linked by something, or someone. 

You know who I’m thinking of. If he’s alive, though, it would be very unlikely that he’d suffer having his web disposed of one thread at a time. Does that mean Moriarty is dead, then? Am I reading too much into this whole thing? It seems like the sort of thing Mycroft’s men could pull off, but why would he bother unless... 

No, I won’t let myself go down that path. Fuck it. You’re dead - you have been for a whole year. You’re fucking dead and you’re not coming back. I need to stop willing you into existence - the real world doesn’t work that way. 

 

\-----

 

I’ve pulled three women this week - that’s more sex that I would’ve had in two months living with you. It’s hard to pick up women when you’re checking your phone every five minutes, hoping your flatmate has texted you news about a grizzly new crime. It’s harder still knowing that you’d rather be with said flatmate discussing rate of decomposition and time of death than shagging some bird who was more than willing to do pretty much anything on any and every available surface. 

To think that I was that distracted by you when we weren’t even... I mean, we were just friends who lived together. To think that you were that much of a distraction is disconcerting. What does that say about me? No wonder everyone thought we were having it off. 

The power of suggestion is a dangerous thing. It’s like when someone tells you not to think about something and then it’s all you can think about for the next hour. Fucking therapy does fuck all except suggest things that I don’t want to think about. 

Now is not the time for a sexuality crisis. I spent years in the army, and I never once felt anything for another man. And now you’re dead and I’ll be damned if I’m going to start thinking about you that way just because I’m over analysing the way that we were. Fuck off. 

 

\-----

 

Nearly a year and a half. I still miss you. I’m not angry as often or as much any more, I just want you to come home. I worry that I’m starting to forget you - what you look like, sound like, etc. I think I... 

I miss you.


	6. Part Three - Sherlock

In Amsterdam, today, Irene managed to find me again. I suspect she’s tracking me somehow to make sure I haven’t gotten myself into any serious danger. I know she’s not having help from Mycroft - the last I heard, he thought her to be dead, although I’m suppose he’s deduced otherwise by now. It was lucky she turned up when she did, otherwise I might have choked on my own vomit. 

It turns out I’m not as adept as I used to be in gauging my tolerance for highly dangerous narcotics. I couldn’t resist the temptation, John. 

I’m not sorry. 

 

\-----

 

I never thought about it at Baker Street. There was always the work, and if not the work, then the boredom. Both were all-consuming. There’s something that you have to understand about me, John. My brain never stops. I told you once that it’s like an engine, racing out of control or a rocket tearing itself to pieces, trapped on the launchpad. Do you remember? 

But now. Now I have time to stop. Now, I have no choice. I stop and I think about Baker Street. And what I miss, who I miss, why I miss it. I think about missed opportunities, times when I could have been... Could have done... So many things, John. They’re beyond my reach now and it burns to know that if I’d only realised sooner, if I had just acted upon it... 

But I never would have. They say - and whoever ‘they’ are, I hope they know just how irritating their omniscience is - that you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. They say that you never ever know if you never ever go. I think there’s an implied ‘there’ in that last one - suffice it to say I never went there. Why would I? You clearly didn’t want anything like that with me - there’s a plethora of examples which I need not list (including “I’m not his date” and “I’m not actually gay”). 

Furthermore, I wasn’t thinking about you. “I’m married to my work,” I told you when we met. But, then, we’d only just met. If I hadn’t said that then, if you didn’t think that I’m immune to feeling those things... 

You guessed that I had feelings for Irene. You were wrong. I was intrigued by her - she was the woman who beat me (before I beat her back, I suppose). She thought you were jealous. Were you? I wish I’d noticed at the time. Well, I observe everything, but I sometimes have difficulty with the interpretation. 

There are too many ‘if only’ situations. There’s no point in dwelling on them. Not when I have a flight to Bergen in three hours, and I have yet to pick up my next passport from one of Mycroft’s men. Not when I still have at least a third of Moriarty’s web to dismantle. Not when I’m strung out on caffeine and lack of sleep. 

I shouldn’t focus on ‘if only’, I should look to the future, but it’s too uncertain to make plans or even imagine that I could just waltz back into your life and declare what I, for want of a better word, feel. 

At the moment, there is no future. I have ‘if only’ and ‘what if’ and they are the most frustrating things of all. 

 

\-----

 

I wonder if I could swim the North Sea from Bergen to the Shetland Islands. It’s very cold and further than I can even imagine, but it would probably be worth it to get back on British soil. I long for London so much that it’s almost an ache in my bones - a physical pain that I cannot escape no matter how much I know I need to be elsewhere. 

This beach is so vast and grey and cold. It makes me sad. I don’t know why. We never visited the beach, you and I. We went to Brighton once for a case, and you wanted to walk along the pier and possibly buy me some ice-cream if only to get me to eat something, but I insisted on returning to the hotel so I could go over some case notes. 

I can’t even imagine what you’d look like in a bathing suit. 

It’s cold here, John. 

And wet. 

It’s deserted. 

I wonder. If I just lay down here on the sand and let the tide swallow me up, would it carry me back to you? Would Neptune take pity on me and grant me safe passage by way of porpoise or something?

My skin itches. 

Coming down has never felt so lonely. 

Or wet. 

 

\-----

 

At last count, it was sixty-five men. That’s including the ones arrested. I feel like I’m getting closer now. I’m near the end and I can breathe again, a little. 

I’m blond now - I’m in Norway, and I found it to be less conspicuous if I blended in with the local colour, as it were. I’m undercover, anyway. You’d be less than pleased - I’m Sven, the streetwalker. Don’t worry, it’s for the work, and I’m nearly to my target now. And I’m always safe, doctor, so you needn’t worry about that. 

I have relapsed, though. Perhaps that is worthy of concern. Personally, I think it’s acceptable. If I have to go through this torturous endeavour, there should be some perks and you’re certainly not around to... Never mind. 

But I’m still not sorry. 

 

\-----

 

Mycroft thinks I know nothing about sex. Irene calls him the ice-man, but she calls me ‘the virgin’. 

They’re both wrong. 

I don’t know what you thought, though. After our “it’s all fine” conversation that first night in Angelo’s, I think you just dismissed the idea that I operated that way. I know I claim to be different - intellectually superior, obviously, and don’t be offended - but I’m not so far removed from the average man that I don’t experience urges. 

It sounds so base, doesn’t it? 

Urges. 

Ordinarily, I can control my body, but every now and then it reacts without my permission. You should know what that’s like, John. You’ve remarkable self-control, but I’ve seen you drunk and I know that even you cannot always prevent certain desires from manifesting themselves physically. 

I wonder now if you ever became aroused because of me. 

I never wondered then. You never gave me any reason to. You haven’t now, how could you have? I sometimes thought about it, at Baker Street; what it would feel like to have you pressing me up against the door, licking your way into my mouth, your hand in my hair - like you did with your numerous girlfriends. I thought I was just in an experimental frame of mind (I often am) but I know better, now. 

I want you, John. 

But you never wanted me. 

 

\-----

 

I nearly drowned on that beach in Bergen. I hadn’t eaten in a few days and passed out on the beach, wondering if I could somehow swim back to England. Completely avoidable, I know, but even I forget the basics - I do think of my body as simply transport, after all, I just forgot that it needed fuel. I was also high as a kite, but that happens when you pump your system full of cocaine. 

Irene wasn’t the one to find me this time, it was one of Mycroft’s men. 

A week after that, I received the first photograph. You know better than anyone of my brother’s penchant for stalking via the CCTV network. Apparently, my recent disregard for my personal wellbeing necessitated some sort of intervention and, for some reason only clear to my dear brother, the only thing capable of clearing my head is surveillance footage of you. 

It’s been a year and a half since I last saw you. 

You look older, John.


	7. Part Three - John

I still have the nightmares. The ones I used to get after the war, mostly, some with Moriarty, a few with you. To be honest, most of my dreams that aren’t nightmares are about you. Some of them are even good dreams, I suppose. 

Sometimes, we’ll be at a crime scene and you’ll be deducing things at a million miles a minute, other times we’ll be eating dinner at Angelo’s. You even eat in my dreams. 

In one dream, we’re in our flat in Baker Street, I’m on my laptop and you’re banging about in the kitchen with some sort of experiment. It was comfortable and familiar - more like a memory than a dream. And then you wandered over and leant over from behind me to see the screen. 

Your face was so close to mine I could feel the heat coming off your skin. I must have made some sort of strangled noise at you being so close and you, being the master of deduction, knew at once what it meant. 

You slowly turned your face towards mine and brushed your lips against my cheekbone. You were so gentle - like you knew it was what I needed but you weren’t sure how I’d react. 

“John,” you’d said, it sounded like a question and a command at the same time, and I’d turned to face you and the next thing I knew my mouth was on yours and we were kissing. It was warm and wet and gentle; I placed my hand on the nape of your neck, curling my fingers into the hair there. 

You took your cues from me, using your long fingers to catalogue the shape of my face. It was simultaneously so uncharacteristic and so perfectly logical that my brain stopped trying to explain it and just enjoyed the moment. 

I woke up hard and embarrassed. I didn’t wake up crying; my pillow was damp. I wanted it to be real. 

I wanted you, Sherlock. 

I’m a year and a half too late.

 

\-----

 

Harry came over last night with Clara - they’re back on again - and cooked me dinner. They both think I’m looking thin. I think they’re exaggerating. I just forget to eat sometimes - it hardly seems important, I guess. I know I’m a doctor, but I’m allowed to forget the rules sometimes. 

Rules are dull. 

You always used to make sure I ate. I never thought about it till just now. Especially when you were on a case, you used to make sure I ate even though you wouldn’t. Always Angelo’s or chinese or even toast, even though the three times you attempted making that yourself, I got charcoal blackened bread. Still, it’s the thought that counts. 

I don’t care what you used to tell people - sociopaths don’t make sure their flatmates are always well fed - that’s what girlfriends do. No wonder everyone thought we were a couple. 

 

\-----

 

I’ve started deducing people. I’ll be looking at a stranger on the tube or the barista making my midday coffee and I’ll start thinking to myself ‘uni student, having an affair with spanish tutor, girlfriend doesn’t know’ or ‘aspiring writer, poor grammar skills, raised by single parent, probably father.’ 

It’s like I can’t stop noticing all these little things and putting them together without even trying - is this what it’s always like for you? Unable to turn off the noticing and getting frustrated that no one’s following your train of thought? 

I don’t kid myself that I’m half as accurate as you ever were, of course not, but it still seems amazing to me that I seem to have acquired some skill in deducing. Then again, who better to learn from than the Great Sherlock Holmes? 

I’m just glad it’s this that’s rubbed off on me after all that time together, and not your rubbish manners. 

 

\-----

 

Greg phoned me the other day. Lestrade, I should say - you never did bother to remember his first name. We met up for a pint. I’m still angry at him, you know, but he sounded contrite enough on the phone so I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Besides, if I ever want to get on with my life without your death looming over me like some bloody great cloud, then I need to stop being so angry all the time (at least, that’s what Ella says). 

Greg felt guilty the moment he let Donovan and Anderson pressure him into going to the Chief Superintendent - he knew you were for real. He hasn’t been in touch because of the guilt. He was also demoted and his wife left him (again) - it’s not just me that’s been having a rough go of it, as it turns out. I feel sorry for him, but my sympathy’s limited; he should never have listened to the others. 

We talked about you, of course. I didn’t want to, but Greg needed to say his piece and clear the air, which is fair enough, I suppose. We stayed on the topic of you longer than I would’ve liked, to be honest, but the alcohol made it easier. 

He told me how you two met five, nearly six, years ago. I knew you used to use, Sherlock, but Christ! I don’t know how you managed to live this long, the cocktail of drugs you have had in your system. 

Lestrade told me how he found you passed out in your own vomit, ten metres away from a crime scene one night. He told me how he called an ambulance for you but you woke up before it arrived, still high as a kite, and started deducing who Greg was just by looking.

You then proceeded to wander over to the crime scene, tell everyone who’d done what, then pass out again as the ambulance arrived. Lestrade went with you to the hospital - did you know that? By the time they’d pumped your stomach and doped you up on sedatives, the real killer had been found and had confessed. Lucky for you, because the other officers on the scene thought that since you knew so much, you must’ve been the killer. 

Greg knew, even then, that you were special. He said that he told you to sort yourself out, get off the drugs, and in return he’d let you consult on the odd case here and there. 

He was the one who gave you the idea of becoming a consulting detective. His career was ruined the moment you claimed to be a fraud, Sherlock. I hope you know that. 

 

\-----

 

I told Ella about my dreams. She looked vindicated. She said I should get out more - not in those words, of course, but everyone knows that pining for your dead flatmate and having sexual fantasies about him is not healthy. She has a point, but at least I can’t forget you if you visit me every night. Who cares about healthy?

Healthy is boring. 

 

\-----

 

I visited the graveyard today for the first time since we buried you. I didn’t go to see you, though, I went for the funeral of an old friend from school. He was my age; healthy as an ox until his heart attack. Then again, people often are perfectly healthy until they die - look at you. 

He wasn’t a close friend - we hardly spoke after we graduated - but I had the day off from the surgery and thought I should pay my respects. What else was I going to do? Stay at home, hoping to dream about you and wanking off to the thought of your lips around my cock? Not healthy. Preferable to a funeral, but not healthy. 

A bunch of us went to the pub afterwards - an unofficial wake for non-family members and not-so-close friends. It was weird reconnecting with all those people again after so many years. Not much has changed except that we all look so much older. 

They asked me about the war and my injury and what I do now. If any of them remembered that I was the friend of that fake genius, they were too polite to bring it up. 

I got three phone numbers out of today - is it wrong to try and pick up at a funeral? Two women and one man. I’ve only experimented with one man before - Alex, his name is. He hasn’t changed much but his phone number has. I don’t know if I want to pursue anything, though. I’m still not gay - it’s only you, Sherlock. 

The other numbers were from an ex-girlfriend, Kelly (divorced, two kids), and Mary, who I used to walk to school with some days. Mary hasn’t changed much - she’s a kindergarten teacher, my height and her hair is as red as it was when we were in school. 

I think I might give her a call, actually. It’d do me good to get out of this flat.


	8. Part Four - Sherlock

I’m not surprised that you’ve found your own flat. Harry and yourself never got on - honestly, I’m surprised that it lasted as long as it did. 

I wasn’t surprised when you left Baker Street, either. Sentiment, am I correct? I assume Mrs Hudson will have had all my things shipped off to various charities - did you take anything of mine with you? I doubt it. You are sentimental, but only to a point. Besides, once a soldier, always a soldier, yes? You don’t like to accumulate too many trappings and unnecessary accoutrements - the most important things to you could all be squeezed into a backpack and easily shunted from place to place. 

I suppose that’s why your new flat looks so sparse. 

 

\-----

 

The photographs Mycroft’s men have brought me aren’t helping. They’re of you with Lestrade, you with random women, you buying coffee - normal, mundane, everyday John. It just makes me ache even more to know that you’re going on without me. I want you to be happy, obviously, I just didn’t imagine it happening without me. Possessiveness has always been a flaw of mine, it’s just inconvenient being so possessive of something I never had in the first place. 

The last few photographs were all of you with the same woman - first at a funeral, then at a cafe, on the street, in the park. They were obviously taken over several weeks. She hasn’t been to your flat yet - I’m surprised. You had no compunctions about taking the other one-night stands back there. That suggests this one is different. She looks like a Kathryn - I wonder what her name actually is. 

You’re smiling more. That’s good.

 

\-----

 

His name is Sebastian Moran - Moriarty’s right hand man. Not unlike me, he’s been in exile for the past nineteen months, though his aim has been locating his former boss. I don’t think he knows Moriarty is dead. Suspects as much, probably, but Mycroft had the body and evidence removed, at my request, before London’s finest got to the scene. 

Come to think of it, do you know that Moriarty is gone? How could you know? 

Well, that certainly explains the premature grey in your hair. Don’t worry, though, it makes you look rather dashing. 

I should ask Mycroft to release the details of Moriarty’s death - though, obviously, not the fact that I pulled the trigger. You’re not ready for the full story yet. 

Soon. 

In any case, I’m now tracking Moran with the help of Mycroft’s secret service. There are, of course, loose ends to tie up (Moran’s not the last in his puppet master’s network), but as far as I’m concerned, Moran is the new Moriarty and he must be stopped. 

At any rate, when he discovers Moriarty to be dead, he will probably assume that I had something to do with it. This might lead him to deduce that I’m still alive. He might come after you as leverage, just as Moriarty did. I hope it doesn’t come to that. I haven’t got a contingency plan. 

Anyway. I’m on route to Ireland. Nearly home now. 

 

\-----

 

With this other woman (for clarity’s sake, I’ll call her Kathryn), is it serious, John? I know I’m in no position to ask these sorts of questions and, in any case, I won’t be getting any sorts of answers. 

I just want to text you and make you drop everything you’re doing so you can rush to my side and... 

How utterly sentimental. 

Being away from London has clearly not been good for my health. Besides, you wouldn’t drop everything for me, now. Even I can tell, through fuzzy CCTV images, that this Kathryn is important to you, (currently) more important than me (although I do have the handicap of being ‘dead’). 

What am I doing, stalking you remotely? I’ve lowered myself to Mycroft’s standards. My big brother is watching you and selecting the information he deems necessary for me to see. He’s probably trying to show me how you’re moving on and that I should make an effort to do so, too. If he truly understood me, he wouldn’t bother. 

The idiot. 

Has she moved in? Mycroft’s personalised surveillance inside your flat is severely limiting my ability to gauge how many items within don’t belong to you. Going purely by the stack of magazines on the new and frankly disgusting coffee table, however, I’d hazard a guess that she has moved in. How long has it been? Two months? Three? It’s not my area, but that does seem fast, John - I hope you know what you’re doing. 

 

\-----

 

Took out another two of Moriarty’s puppets, today. It was dangerous - you would’ve loved it. All guns and chasing and me outsmarting them. I was given a dressing down by Mycroft over the phone half an hour later. Apparently, my lack of subtlety and ‘penchant for showing off’ are going to get me killed. Ever the drama queen, my brother. 

At least he hasn’t told Mummy what I’m up to. I’ve no idea how he’s managed to keep her in the dark this long, but I suppose she is rather busy with the French election coming up. 

 

\-----

 

There’s an entire wing in my Mind Palace dedicated to one Dr John Watson now, did you know? 

Now more than ever I find myself venturing in when I need to stop and just breathe. 

There’s a room full of jumpers and jam and all the things that are just so ordinary and domestic. There’s a room where I keep a catalogue of all your commonly used phrases (“we’re out of milk,” “manners, Sherlock,” “a bit not good,”) and facial expressions - my favourite being the one of awe that you give me after particularly impressive deductions. 

All my favourite memories involving you are carefully stored in a room larger than all of 221B - deducing you at St Bart’s, dinner at Angelo’s, our first crime scene together, mornings in the flat, Chinese around the corner - hundreds upon hundreds of of memories all revolving around one human being. 

I never deleted anything about you. I could spend days in there, reliving the memories, basking in the glow of your approval, thinking up new ways to impress you or make you smile (probably at crime scenes). 

I wonder, is this how ordinary people feel about the ones they care for? Is this what being in love is, because if so, it is inconveniently distracting. It would be impractical to wallow in the memories - there is the work to consider. The sooner it’s done, the sooner I can come home.


	9. Part Four - John

A month and a half of dating Mary has gone so quickly. I don’t think I’ve smiled so much in years - my face actually hurts. I think you’d like her, Sherlock. Well, I suppose you wouldn’t like her because she’d monopolise my time and you always were very possessive - why was that? 

Anyway, I think you’d respect her, at least. She’s very bright and quite witty. If you had a sense of humour other than the graveyard variety or sarcasm, you’d probably like her jokes. 

I’m not delusional enough to think you’d find her interesting, but I think she is. And gorgeous to boot. I feel like my grey, boring life my be starting to colour again. Sure, it’s not saturated with colour like it was with you and all your adventure, but it’s a start. 

I think things are looking up.

 

\-----

 

Mary and I went on a mini-break last weekend. She wanted to surprise me by choosing the location and driving me there. You can guess where she chose, can’t you? Of all the weekend holiday destinations in all of England she chose the one that holds the most memories of you: A romantic getaway at Cross Keys in Dartmoor. 

Mary has a fascination with myths and legends, you see, so she’d heard from a friend a few years ago about the demon hound and was intrigued. She didn’t think to google it, but that’s Mary - impulsive, adventurous, a bit like you, I guess (although, you always do your research). 

I couldn’t quite keep my poker face when we arrived. It was all too familiar, overwhelmingly so - I kept expecting you to walk around a corner, with your coat collar turned up to look cool. 

I got to see their double rooms at Cross Keys - last time we were there, Gary apologised for not being able to give us a double room. Even they assumed we were a couple. I hate that when we got up to the room I couldn’t help but wonder which side of the bed you would’ve slept on if we’d gotten a double when we were there last time. Mary isn’t stupid, either - she noticed that something was wrong. 

I hadn’t told her about you. Why bring all that baggage into a relationship, especially one that you intend on hanging onto? I explained about you - my erratic, detective flatmate - and about our case at Dartmoor. Mary hadn’t even known about you or your fall - I imagine you would have been disappointed. It turns out she had been working abroad until about a year ago (teaching kids in Uganda, apparently) so she knew nothing about any of it. 

I gave her the bare minimum - it’s still too hard to talk about you aloud, especially in a place with so many memories; the place where you told me I was your only friend. 

I think she knows that there’s something I’m not telling her, but she won’t push it. She’s good like that. I’m grateful.

 

\-----

 

I think I want to ask Mary to move in with me - it’s nice having someone around to make tea for, to watch telly with or to fuck whenever the mood strikes. The only problem is I still get the nightmares. Well, it’s more the other dreams that I’m worried she’ll find out about. I’m not sure I want to explain why some nights I call out your name...

It’s new to me, this whole thing. Not dating Mary, although it’s fair to say I’ve never been this serious about anyone before (they didn’t call me three-continents Watson for nothing, you know). No, this thing with you, though how I can even say it’s ‘with’ you makes no sense - you’ve been dead for nearly two years. And, more to the point, we were never together (in the way that I’m now wishing we were) when you were around. Experimenting in school was nothing compared to the things I want to do with you. 

This is sick! You’re gone and you’re not coming back. You’re not even interested in that sort of thing! I just... I can’t help but wonder how it would’ve been. My filthy subconscious has no trouble providing me with the details of what we’d get up to. 

I’ve seen you naked before, of course - we shared a flat. It’s something different entirely in my fantasies when you’re looking at me with dark eyes, pupils completely dilated, and your cock standing to attention, already leaking in anticipation. 

In my dreams, that’s usually how it starts. You naked, trying to get my attention and always succeeding. In some scenarios, I’d bend you over the back of the sofa and fuck you till you screamed. Other times, you’d drop to your knees and take me in your mouth. 

God, your mouth, Sherlock! You have no idea what that image of your lips around my cock does to me. I’m hard just thinking about it. And it’s wrong. It’s so wrong, because you never would do that in real life. You never came remotely close to anything resembling sexual desire, unless I just missed all the signs, of course. But sex is my area - I think I would’ve noticed. 

In other dreams, we’ve both just finished a case and we’re running high on adrenaline and the sense of a job well done. You take my hand and I follow you into your bedroom. You pull me down onto the bed with you and we just kiss. You’re such a gentle lover, did you know that? 

In my dreams, you’re very rarely demanding and impatient - like you are pretty much the rest of the time - you’re always so giving. Would it have been like that in reality? Would you have moaned my name and told me all the things you loved about me? Would you have muttered in french as I drove into you hard and fast? Would you have told me afterwards that this was more than just a physical thing - that you needed me in every way and it would’ve been unbearable to have anything less? 

Probably not. 

These dreams get me nowhere and yet, I don’t want them to stop. I don’t ever want them to stop. 

I should ask Mary to move in with me. 

This isn’t healthy. 

 

\-----

 

I had to remove a gangrenous toe today. It’s probably the most exciting thing that’s happened at work in a long time. Usually, we’d send a case like that to the A&E but it was a very old patient - Mr Johnson - and he said he’d feel more comfortable doing it with his regular GP. So, I was a surgeon today. Haven’t removed appendages (or limbs) in a long, long time. 

I was tempted to keep the toe. Infected with gangrene, I thought, Sherlock would love to experiment on that. Then I remembered that I live with Mary now, not you, and if Mary came home to find a gangrenous toe in the vegetable crisper she’d be far less excited about it than you would have been. Which is normal, I suppose. 

Normal can be so fucking dull sometimes. 

 

\-----

 

Sally Donovan emailed me today - of all the people! Too cowardly to speak to me face to face, I guess. It was an apology of sorts. She refused to admit outright that she’d been wrong to go over Lestrade’s head to the Chief, but she said she’d been looking into the Richard Brook story and it didn’t add up. Can you believe that she’s been working on this for the past, what, nearly two years? She must feel really guilty about your suicide. I wanted to tell her to piss off and that I didn’t need the proof to know that Moriarty was real and you were not a fake, but I held my tongue. 

Instead, I went to Harry’s to get the box of assorted crap I’d brought from 221B that had no place in my flat. I found the can of yellow spray paint - the one from that case where you let me get an ASBO, might I remind you - and I texted Greg to ask for Sally’s address. He gave it to me, reluctantly, so I went to her flat and graffitied “I believe in Sherlock Holmes” on her car. 

It wasn’t the brightest thing I’ve ever done, graffitiing a police officer’s car, but I think Sally will get the message and I highly doubt that Greg will dob me in when he finds out what’s happened. 

It was quite a lot of fun, actually. There are a few blank walls in London that could do with some freedom of speech, but people have probably forgotten about you by now, so there’s probably no point. 

Next time I get bored, though, graffiti is a slightly more respectable option than masturbating to the thought of your dead flatmate (especially when you have a girlfriend).

 

\-----

 

It’s been six months since I reconnected with Mary, three months since she’s been living with me, and today I bought an engagement ring. We haven’t talked about marriage - only half a year together, it’s kind of early days. But we’re not getting any younger, and I haven’t felt this way about a woman possibly ever. I feel better when she’s around. 

I haven’t forgotten about you, Sherlock, not by a long run. I still have the dreams, I still imagine talking to you about my day, I still get a rush of hope every time my phone goes off that it’s you texting me about a new case. 

But now Mary is the one who I tell my day about, and she’s the one who I get texts from; she’s the one who takes advantage when I wake up hard after a dream about you. 

I could never forget you, Sherlock, but I need to move on. The damn therapist thinks that this is a good thing and I’m likely to agree with her. There were months where I could barely breathe but now... 

God, I miss you. 

I’m not going to propose right away - that would be ridiculous. It’s good to be prepared, though. If she says yes... I was going to ask you to be my best man. Guess I don’t really need one, though. There’s no one better than you.


	10. Part Five - Sherlock

Something has changed, John. The last photo I saw of you was at one of the jewellers on Oxford Street. You appeared to be looking at engagement rings. Why would you be looking at those, John? Surely you can’t be thinking of proposing! You’ve known this woman, what, six months? 

That’s not enough time to have catalogued her fundamental character flaws and extrapolated their irritation factor over the next indeterminable number of years; that’s not long enough to know about all her sexual abilities and desires, thus making them boring and routine. It’s certainly not long enough for you to have discussed children and houses and the future. 

I don’t proclaim to know much about romantic relationships, much less ones involving my flatmate (to whom I seem to have some sort of more-than-platonic attachment myself), but does this not seem to be moving too quickly for you?

Then again, you, John Watson, do not operate under normal time standards for relationship progression: you shot a man dead, without a second thought, within hours of meeting me, just to keep me - a man you barely knew - safe. Obviously, if there was one word in the entire english language that would be wholly inadequate to describe you, that word would be ‘ordinary’. 

 

\-----

 

Every inch of my body is blistered and red. It hurts to move; it hurts to breathe. 

I’m in the Royal Mercy Hospital in Belfast. At the risk of stereotyping Irish terrorists, they are collectively rather fond of their explosives. 

Suffice it to say that Moran knows I’m alive and tailing him. It would be an understatement to say he wasn’t pleased. He blew up the hotel I was staying in, more to prove a point than anything, I believe. If he wanted me dead, I would be - intelligence shows that he was a sniper for the IRA before he was personally recruited by dear Jim. 

Twenty-two people died because I wasn’t subtle or quick enough. 

I’m not accustomed to feeling guilt. 

I’ve felt it on perhaps four occasions throughout my life. The first when I was six and inadvertently broke a very precious family heirloom (destined to go to Mycroft) while playing ‘pirates’. 

The second when my father drank himself into an early grave shortly after I was expelled from my third boarding school for possession of drugs, alcohol and pornography of all varieties. I know I didn’t give him liver disease, precisely, but I know I wasn’t an easy child to raise and my open defiance of everything he stood for undoubtedly contributed to his death. I was a terrible son. 

The third time is an incident you know, of course, although you probably don’t realise that it made me feel guilty; it was when I jumped off the roof at St Bart’s and continued to let you think me dead. 

And now, I feel guilt for again not being quick enough or clever enough to have ended this long game once and for all. I don’t feel guilt for their death - I didn’t plant the explosives. 

I feel guilt as this all started because of me and I’ve been playing catch-up ever since; I was not clever enough to save all those people who’ve died or suffered. It is a terrible burden to bear. Guilt combined with an overwhelming sense of failure is even worse. 

 

\-----

 

Two weeks in this godforsaken hospital and I think I might be losing my mind, John. I’m almost certain that the explosion made the national news - it might have reached London, even. 

I don’t know what to do. I always have a plan, John, always. I can’t seem to organise my thoughts. The doctors say it’s a concussion, but what would they know? My mind is not likely to be affected in the same way ordinary people’s are. That would be absurd - you’d understand. 

It’s because I don’t have all the facts, I can’t collect my own data. I’m completely in the dark about Moran’s next move and Mycroft, in some misguided attempt to protect me, is refusing to let me know anything until I’m fully recovered. Honestly! I’m a grown man - I can take care of myself. 

For all I know, Moran could be going back underground, in which case it will take me weeks to find him again. Or he could be mobilising the remains of Moriarty’s web to do I don’t know what. Or... He knows I’m alive but he didn’t come back to finish me off. 

What’s his next move? 

He knows that Moriarty had three guns trained on the three people I care most about. He knows my weaknesses, my pressure points - he could easily exploit them again. 

Oh, God, John. What if he’s coming after you? And Mrs Hudson and Lestrade... But you, John. It is imperative to keep you safe. 

I need to call Mycroft. He has to fix this. 

 

\-----

 

I’m on my way to London, John. Please be safe. Will you do that for me? Just... Please.


	11. Part Five - John

I think I’m losing my mind again. Mary thinks I’m probably imagining it, or blowing things out of all proportion, but she doesn’t know you or anything about Moriarty’s twisted games. 

I saw the article in the paper about a massive explosion in Belfast - it’s been all over the telly, here. They’re saying it’s the IRA but something about it doesn’t sit right with me. I don’t know what it is - call it instinct. 

There were a few grainy photographs of the aftermath, though, and I could’ve sworn one of the survivors on a stretcher looked a hell of a lot like you. Different hair colour, couldn’t see your face, but those hands were so familiar and this victim was wearing a great coat just like yours. 

It’s insane, isn’t it? I’ve finally cracked. 

But Moriarty was Irish, and we know that he had a right hand man that, as far as I know, the police never got to because they never believed Moriarty was real. 

If I put this together with what I’ve already been reading about criminal organisations across the continent falling over the past two years... Christ, Sherlock! 

If you’re alive and it’s you that’s been doing this one-man vengeance tour... 

What about me? Why would you have lied to me? 

Mary’s right - I must be imagining it because there’s no way you could do that to me, is there? Even you would realise how fucking wrong it would be to fake your suicide and make your best friend watch, wouldn’t you?

Fuck it, if I’m right, I don’t want anything to do with you. I can’t believe I... 

There’s only one way to find out. I’m going to go see your brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's one or two chapters left to go. Still not sure how I'm going to finish this fic - whether it will be first person stream of consciousness like the rest of the fic, or if I should go with a dialogue-y option. Any ideas or burning questions (or things that I've made mistakes on and need to fix) let me know in the comments. Thanks, lovelies!


	12. Part Six - Sherlock and John

Previously: 

_There’s only one way to find out. I’m going to go see your brother._

 

**Part Six**

**  
**_Sherlock and John_

 _  
_The only problem was, John wasn’t exactly sure how to find Mycroft Holmes. In the past, it had always been the latter who had found him. Well, abducted him, usually. John thought about trying the Diogenes Club - the last place he had spoken with Mycroft face to face before Sherlock’s fall.

John felt a remarkable calm come over him as he made the decision and ordered a cab. He’d know definitively whether or not Sherlock Holmes was actually dead. It was a relief. He knew Mycroft was capable of lying - he’d made a career out of it, but the time had come to find out the truth. Had Mycroft known Sherlock was alive? Or was John’s imagination getting away from him and it was as simple as it seemed - Sherlock had died that day and these incidents John was using as evidence were purely coincidental. 

He told Mary that he was going to the pub with Stamford - he hated lying to her, but she wouldn’t understand. If he spoke to Mycroft and received confirmation that Sherlock was truly, undeniably dead, then he’d be in no condition to speak to anyone (it was more likely he’d drink until he passed out), and if it turned out that Sherlock was alive... Well. There was no telling what would happen. 

“The Diogenes Club, cheers, mate,” John said, sliding into the back of the taxi when it arrived remarkably quickly outside his flat. “Straight up the M1.”

“I’m a bit new to town, actually. Could you direct me?” came a lilting Irish accent from the driver’s seat. 

“Uh, sure. Just a left here, then straight till you reach the turn off,” John replied, anxious to get there quickly. 

“Diogenes? That’s a gentleman’s club, isn’t it?” asked the cabbie. 

“Yep,” John replied shortly, wishing the man would just shut up and drive. 

“You must be pretty well-to-do, sir,” said the cabbie. 

“Visiting a friend.”

“Would that be Mycroft Holmes, then, Doctor Watson?”

John felt a chill run down his spine and mentally berated himself for not bringing his gun with him. He settled for gripping tightly onto the door handle, lest he need to throw himself out of the moving vehicle at a moment’s notice. 

“How do you know who I am?”

There was a beat before the cabbie turned his head slightly to peer at John over his shoulder, a feral grin on his stubbled face. 

“Seb Moran at your service. I believe you knew my late boss, Jim Moriarty.”

At the name Moriarty, the colour drained from John’s face, causing Moran to chuckle. “Good, you should be scared, Doctor.”

He was misinterpreting John’s shock, however; John wasn’t afraid of this Irish thug - probably ex-military or IRA - he was shocked because if Moriarty was dead then, in all likelihood, Sherlock was alive. 

“Where are you taking me?” John asked, his voice even. 

“Somewhere your dear consulting detective will have to come and get you,” Moran said. “I’m itching to put a bullet through his brain after what he did to dear Jim, but I couldn’t do it with big brother watching in that hospital. So I needed bait. I do hope he works it out before I kill you, otherwise it’ll all have been such a waste.”

John’s mind was racing, but he wasn’t worried about the imminent danger and potential execution that would surely come when the cab stopped moving; his mind was stuck on a loop, _he’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive_.

\-----

Meanwhile, Sherlock was frantically turning London upside down in search of the good doctor. He’d called John’s mobile, which had rung out. Then, as a last resort, had called the flat. Mary had answered and, not knowing Sherlock’s voice, was more than a bit confused as to why a stranger was enquiring about the whereabouts of her boyfriend. Still, Sherlock had managed to wheedle it out of her that John was at the pub with Stamford. Well, Sherlock had been to that pub and there was no sign of either man. So, John had lied. The only possible explanation could be that he was hiding something from his beloved, but what could it be? According to Mycroft’s surveillance, there were no other women (or men) in John’s life; his routine rarely varied between home, the clinic and the pub. 

Thinking about Mycroft, Sherlock let out a frustrated moan - the one time he needed to ask his brother for help, the bloody git refused to interfere. He was getting radio silence from the man, who was not impressed that Sherlock had returned before being given the all-clear.  

It was getting dark, and Sherlock was jet-lagged, still recovering from injuries and getting desperate. Why wasn’t John where he said he would be? Was he too late? Had Moran gotten the better of him?

 _Try to put yourself in John’s shoes_ , Sherlock thought to himself. _If I were John, the only reason I’d lie to Mary is because I don’t want her to know what I’m up to. There are two possible scenarios. One, I am trying to surprise her (though John was never the surprise-romantic type, more planned and traditional, so it’s unlikely). Two, I am embarrassed by what I’m doing. It’s not a secret relationship, so what? What, what, what? John’s always been worried about what other people think. He was worried about what other people thought of me. I’m gone, so it’s about what people think of him. What has he to hide?_

Sherlock recognised that he was egocentric to think it was all about him, but when it came to John Watson, Sherlock was usually involved somehow. After all, John had graffitied Donovan’s car with ‘I believe in Sherlock Holmes’ - he’d done it anonymously, he hadn’t wanted Mary to know. What if he was trying to track Sherlock down - what if he’d pieced together the fact that Sherlock was alive but was ashamed for allowing himself to believe it? Sherlock’s brief epiphany was swiftly followed by another. If John thought Sherlock to be alive, his first port of call would be Mycroft.  So he set off for the Diogenes Club. 

When he arrived to find Mycroft casually flipping through secret service files in his office, with no John in sight, he started to worry again. After a failed attempt at interrogating his brother - for which he received an arch look and utter silence - the consulting detective stormed from the office and pulled out his last resort - a new mobile phone. 

He could remember John’s number. All this time he’d thought of just texting out of the blue. 

_John, I’m alive. John, I’m coming home. John, wait for me._

He’d never followed through, though. Every time he found his finger hovering over the send button, he remembered the work. The work was paramount - it meant John’s safety, and the safety of many, many more.

Now, though, it was a different matter. It was urgent. 

Sherlock squinted at the screen lighting up in the dark street as he typed the words _John, where are you? I’m not dead - SH_

 


End file.
